I'm having trouble finding a way that this article could have been more vague. Espionage is white-collar work, it's not like these guys are hauling lumber and pouring concrete. Are all Australians required to wear safety vests while sitting at a computer and running photocopies? Are they required to do a safety dance during their lunch breaks?

HotWingAgenda:I'm having trouble finding a way that this article could have been more vague. Espionage is white-collar work, it's not like these guys are hauling lumber and pouring concrete. Are all Australians required to wear safety vests while sitting at a computer and running photocopies? Are they required to do a safety dance during their lunch breaks?

Danger Avoid Death:HotWingAgenda: I'm having trouble finding a way that this article could have been more vague. Espionage is white-collar work, it's not like these guys are hauling lumber and pouring concrete. Are all Australians required to wear safety vests while sitting at a computer and running photocopies? Are they required to do a safety dance during their lunch breaks?

Only if they want to. And they're no friends of mine.

But the good news is, they can go where they want to, a place where they will never find, so they'll be safe.

HotWingAgenda:I'm having trouble finding a way that this article could have been more vague. Espionage is white-collar work, it's not like these guys are hauling lumber and pouring concrete. Are all Australians required to wear safety vests while sitting at a computer and running photocopies? Are they required to do a safety dance during their lunch breaks?

It's probably something along the lines of: if you're outside and working, then you have to wear safety gear.

As TalenLee points out, despite the stupid article it's not actually as if agents are wearing hi-viz, there's simply a bureaucratic fix being undertaken to make the existing situation comply with the letter of the legal requirements. It is hard to know whether Australia should be more embarrassed by its security agencies (the now-open files they kept on various left-wing artists, activists and celebrities in the 1960's make for hilarious and cringe-worthy reading) or the Murdoch media's News.com.au. I can tell you neither have much support over here.

In fact if you want a trifecta of Australian national embarrassment, ASIO, tabloids and Fosters are pretty much it, perhaps with Savage Garden bringing up a close forth.

Aussie_As:whether Australia should be more embarrassed by its security agencies

Two ASIOnecdotes.

1. A friend of mine was trialled to work for ASIO as a cryptographer. They bounced him after the interview because his records and history matched his CV and interview too closely - they felt he was dangerously honest.

2. Another friend of mine wanted to check ASIO's history, so he looked them up in the phone book and called them. He was put through three people before they asked him how he had the phone number. It all culminated with a startled ASIO office worker saying, "Wait, we're in the farking phone book?"

abhorrent1:Yeah because Intelligence Services are known for following the rules.

Umm, yeah, that's why the Government is uncontroversially tinkering with those same very rules so that the legislation will conform to the reality . It's actually a very unsexy story which a rubbish news site has tried to pretend is somehow interesting. If you read TFA, it actually never claims spooks are in fact wearing hi-viz, just that the rules as currently written don't exempt them. There is never any suggestion these rules are currently being enforced.

/or am I some sort of government agent and this is just what I want you to think?

Finally. Maybe now the numbskulls in Washington will realize that there are common-sense situations that require workplace safety laws to be ignored. Overreaction should NOT play a role in governance. But here we are in the year 2013 and we live in times where one seven-year old slips on the slaughterrhouse floor and the whole bloody thing gets shut down. Where's the justice in that?!?

I say make em all wear yellow vests or repeal everything. NO MIDDLE GROUND!